Stanley Kozlowski's story of his rise from poor farm boy to president of his own company is an extremely motivational one. He grew up on a farm in northwestern Poland where he helped to earn money and bring home food for the table by working in a butcher's shop. When he and his older brother immigrated to the United States in 1964 and joined their uncle at a Pratt & Whitney machine shop in Connecticut, Kozlowski found that his expertise in cutting up meat with sharp tools translated well into this new industry of cutting metal.

In 1983, Kozlowski started his own machine shop, AM Precision Machining Inc., in a 25,000-square-foot facility at 170 Lively Boulevard in Elk Grove Village. He named the company after his children, Andy and Margaret. Both work in the business today, Andy as Senior Vice President of Operations and Margaret as CEO.

AM Precision first began to make a name for itself because of its ability to work with exotic metals used in the military and aerospace industries. "My dad was very successful on some top secret and painstaking projects for Rolls Royce-Allison involving prototype machines," says Andy Kozlowski. "He also aided in the development and production of load plates for Pratt & Whitney in the exhaust system housing for the YF-22 Joint Strike Fighter. It's projects like that which have made AM Precision the instantly recognizable industry name that it is today."

"We're a CNC machine shop with full capabilities," says Margaret Kozlowski, "so we can handle simple jobs to some of the most complicated projects out there. In fact, our dad has earned the reputation in the industry of being the one that customers go to when they need a complex product. They'll say, 'Call Stan at AM Precision; he'll figure it out.' "